Research

In Australia, voting is mandatory. Skip the polls on election day and you’ll find yourself with a ticket.

Canadians wouldn’t have fared so well in this system. Turnout in the recent Canadian federal election was a record low of 58 per cent. In North America more generally , voter turnout statistics hover around 50 per cent. Why?

A lot of it, says Professor Renan Levine of political science, depends on the country’s electoral institutions. For example, if a country has proportional representation, turnout will tend to be higher. In first-past-the-post systems like the U.S. and Canada, the winner takes all. In other words, your M.P. is the person who got the most votes in your riding, regardless of whether the victory was a landslide or won by a margin of just one vote. Though there are many different ways to implement proportional representation, it generally results in a more direct reflection of the popular vote—the proportion of seats in the government directly reflects the parties voted for in the popular vote. This system is found across much of northern and eastern Europe.

“In countries that have proportional representation, there are a lot of small parties and only a few percentage points increase in one party’s vote will make a difference in terms of how many seats they get,” says Levine. This will tend to increase voting because people feel their vote matters. And because there are more parties, they’re more likely to find a party that matches their specific views.

Voter turnout is also driven by politicians’ efforts to encourage turnout. In proportional systems, get-out-the-vote efforts are more intense, because small numbers of votes can make a big difference.

Demographics matter too: countries with older, more homogenous populations have higher voter turnout.

People who are tied to their communities tend to vote more, too. Levine points out that Americans and Canadians tend to move around a lot. “They’re not necessarily settled, especially in big cities. It may take a while before they feel tied to a community.”

Tags: Behind the Headlines, politics, Renan Levine, Society